A jewelry brand that began as a hobby has grown into a community-minded enterprise for Portland-based designer T Ngu.
Text by Emilly Prado
Images by Sera Lindsey
T Ngu, owner and designer of jewelry line Upper Metal Class, remembers marveling at treasures her mother tucked away in a cookie tin repurposed as a jewelry catchall. “I used to go in there and play with her jewelry,” she says. “Some of the [nice pieces] she would hardly wear because she’d just be working part-time jobs all the time.” Ngu remembers special moments like birthdays when she got little jewelry items, like a gold monkey ring to match the Chinese symbol for her birth year. “We couldn’t really afford things,” Ngu says, “[so] I would just love it to death.”
Ngu’s family came to the United States from Vietnam by way of Hong Kong as refugees in 1980, one month before she was born. They lived in and out of housing projects around Los Angeles until her mother finished school and started a landscaping business. For Ngu, her parents’ decisions and perseverance helped pave the way for her to pursue her creative dreams.
Today, Ngu runs Upper Metal Class, a minimalist jewelry line that blossomed from side hobby to full-time endeavor in 2008. Formerly, Ngu had worked up through the fashion industry as an intern, in the shipping department of fashion design company, as a stylist, and as a clothing designer. But she got burnt out by toxic, racist, and sexist work environments.
Eventually, she got a job in retail to slow down and take the pressure off her career. She also took a jewelry- making workshop. “It’s one of the things I thought I would really enjoy learning,” she says. “It was that and wanting to make something I could wear—something for me. I also wanted to get my mind off of feeling, at that time, like a failure.”
T Ngu makes each piece of Upper Metal Class jewelry herself and gives back to her community by donating a portion of all the line’s profits and select product sales.
When her partner had the opportunity to move to Portland in 2010, Ngu jumped at the chance and brought her business with her. Since then, she has continued exploring her entrepreneurial spirit and infused social justice into her work. For the last six years, she has volunteered with Adventist Health Hospice. In 2017, she opened Project Object, which showcases products crafted by people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ makers, operating it as a brick- and-mortar shop until early 2019, when she turned it into an exclusively online boutique. “You’re always evolving and changing,” Ngu says, “and so with that, other things like your career or what you like changes as well.”
But seeking and supporting community remains central for Ngu. She continues to donate a portion of profits and select Upper Metal Class product sales and intends to keep participating in events like My People’s Market. “I want to support people and these organizations that can better us as a whole,” Ngu says. “My mom is a catalyst for that. It’s something I’ve learned from her: Be a good person, do good things, and help people out.”
Find Upper Metal Class in Portland at Betsy and Iya, Red Sail, and Tender Loving Empire in Hawthorne, Downtown, Northwest, and at the Portland International Airport.